Tyr
by Eryn
Summary: Tyr's thoughts on Harper as they work together


DISCLAIMER: Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda belongs to Tribune. I am just borrowing the characters to play with for a while!

Views to: eryn.grant@ntlworld.com

A companion piece to "Harper", "Andromeda" and "Dylan". I hope you enjoy.

  
Tyr 

by Eryn Grant  


"Why me?" Tyr grumbled as he dragged himself, on his stomach, through the small access-way. He felt slightly claustrophobic, and idly wondered how Harper spent endless hours in the vast maze of conduits that made up the Andromeda. Tyr muttered to himself again, half suspecting that Harper had led him through the smallest conduits on purpose. Pausing for a moment to stretch out his cramped muscles, Tyr thought he could hear his body's protesting groans at being confined to such a small space.

"Come on," a voice ahead of him called. "No lying down allowed," Harper's head peeped around a corner. "Dylan wants these repairs done today." 

"Boy," Tyr bellowed. "When I can stand up I am going to kill you with my bare hands," he threatened as he started to crawl towards Harper. 

"Temper. Temper," Harper smirked as he disappeared around the corner. 

Tyr growled again. "I will kill him," he murmured to himself as he followed Harper's disappearing boots. He pulled himself along the conduit until he came to the connecting chamber. Tyr dropped to the floor sighing as he stretched to his full height, his joints cracking in relief. 

Harper sat cross-legged on the floor intent on one of the blinking panels. He stuck his hand up towards Tyr. "Screwdriver," Harper waggled his fingers impatiently at Tyr. 

Tyr raised his eyes in exasperation, deciding that he might kill Dylan instead for volunteering him to help Harper with repairs. With a long suffering sigh, he bent down studying the array of tools in the box. Randomly grabbing one of the screwdrivers, Tyr thrust it towards Harper. 

"Not that one," Harper snapped without looking up. "The one with the green handle," he stabbed a finger absently in the direction of the tool box. 

"Boy," Tyr growled. "You are trying my patience," he accused snatching up the correct screwdriver thrusting it towards the small engineer. 

"Sorry," Harper looked up at Tyr, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "Forgot you don't know a screwdriver from your elbow," he grinned before turning back to his work with a small giggle. 

Tyr pulled a face as he slumped down next to the tool box. "Child," he sighed in defeat. "If you weren't so brilliant in keeping the ship working and thus ensuring my continued survival, I would throw you out of an airlock." 

"Gotta find me first," Harper glanced sideways at Tyr with a grin. Tyr scowled turning away pretending to study the tool box, ignoring Harper. Bored, he idly picked up each of the tools inspecting each before dropping them back into the box. Harper watched Tyr out of the corner of his eye for a while. "Why do you call me that?" he asked with a frown. "I'm not a child or a boy. "I'm a grown man. I'm....," he paused frowning again. "Well I don't know how old I am. But I know I'm not a child." 

"You don't know how old you are?" Tyr asked surprised, looking up from his inspection. 

"No," Harper shrugged turning back to the panel. Biting at his bottom lip, he silently cursed himself for starting the conversation. "Me and my big mouth," he thought to himself as he probed gently with the screwdriver. "Anyone who knew is dead," he confessed in a quiet voice. He stared into the blinking lights of the panel distractedly, momentarily lost in his thoughts. 

"You never celebrated the day of your birth?" Tyr asked interrupting Harper's thoughts. 

"No," Harper shrugged again. "Probe," he stuck his hand out towards Tyr. He chuckled as he heard Tyr rummaging in the box. "The little shiny one." 

"Probe," Tyr said triumphantly as he handed Harper the correct tool. Tyr sat back on his haunches watching as Harper silently worked, his face screwed up in concentration. "So," Tyr asked curious. "What exactly are we fixing this time?" 

Harper breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Tyr seemed to have lost interest in asking questions about his past life. "Some of the outer sensors got pretty fried in the last attack," he mumbled. "And," Harper tapped another panel. "Then we gotta do some work on the forward weapons array or we'll be firing air at the nice people who wanna kill us." Harper looked back at Tyr. "And then..." 

"We upgrade the anti-gravs," Tyr cut in. "And then reconfigure the targeting locks for the port batteries." He smirked at Harper, pleased with himself. 

"No," Harper countered with a cheeky grin. "It's time for lunch," he tossed a purple-coloured fruit at Tyr. Tyr swore in Nietzschean as he caught the fruit, glaring at Harper. "I think that's anatomically impossible," Harper pulled a face as he bit into his own piece of fruit. 

"You understood what I said?" Tyr's asked, his tone surprised. 

"I picked up a few words," Harper explained amused at Tyr's surprise. He took a last bite of the fruit. "The shrillers gave them hell, and they were pretty vocal about it," he closed the panel in front him, satisfied with his work. Without getting up, he shifted along to the next panel opening it carefully. "Now for the weapons array. Gotta plug in for this one," Harper rummaged in his tool belt to find his dataport lead. 

Tyr watched as Harper plugged one end of the lead into the panel. "Annoy you later," Harper winked at Tyr as he reached behind his head carefully plugging the lead into his dataport. 

"Harper," Tyr threatened, but it was too late. Tyr watched in fascination as the light seemed to dim in Harper's usually bright eyes. He cocked his head to one side as Harper's eyes seemed to roll back in his head. His eyelids closed as he slumped back against the wall, his consciousness leaving his body. 

"Peace at last,"Tyr muttered with a smile. He moved closer to Harper, not being able to resist gently poking at the smaller man - no response, not even a murmur. 

Without Harper's chatter, the conduit seemed to echo with silence. Tyr studied the younger man - Harper looked nothing like the frenetic, jumpy and talkative engineer, who annoyed most of them on a daily basis. He looked peaceful - the shadowy light of the conduits flickered across his pale skin making him look even more childlike and vulnerable than usual. His blonde spiky hair was the only sign of his vigorous personality, sticking up wildly as usual. 

It suddenly struck Tyr that he had never seen Harper look peaceful - he was always twitchy, nervous and far too talkative. He knew that Harper's distrust and skittishness around him stemmed from the fact that he was a Nietzschean. Tyr knew that the Drago Kazov were cruel and vicious, and treated the people living on their slave worlds - human or alien - savagely and without mercy. Tyr guessed that Harper had deep scars that would never heal, not even with time. Harper would never trust him. He was a Nietzschean. 

He turned his thoughts to their short conversation, not being able to believe that Harper didn't know how old he was, and had never celebrated a birthday. All Nietzschean children, boys and girls, were treated to elaborate festivities every year, and Tyr remembered, with fondness, each and every birthday he had ever celebrated with his family. 

Tyr looked down at Harper again narrowing his eyes - they were so different, but so alike at the same time. Tyr towered over the smaller, more delicately built man, and had used his size to his advantage on many occasions, but it unsettled him to know that Harper, out of all the crew, would probably understand how he felt about losing his whole family. Tyr considered himself to be a brave man, afraid of nothing or no man. But he, Tyr Anasazi, was too afraid to talk to a little mudfoot, a kludge, about the death of their respective families and the pain of missing them every day. 

Tyr shook his head, scolding himself for his foolishness - he didn't care anyway, did he? Harper was an annoying little man, who talked too much and was far too flippant for his own good. But on the other hand, Harper was a brilliant and creative engineer who worked miracles on the Andromeda, and therefore assured his survival. Tyr reminded himself every day that his continued survival was all he cared about, that he cared nothing for the rest of the crew and especially the irritating little engineer. 

His thoughts were interrupted as an explosion rocked the ship. Without thinking, Tyr leaned towards Harper knowing that it was dangerous for the engineer to become detached from Andromeda's central core without warning. "Ship," he yelled as he put his hands gently on Harper's shoulders to steady his limp body. "What is going on up there?" 

"We are being attacked by, as yet, unknown assailants," the detached voice of the Andromeda replied. "Stay with Harper. He has nearly completed the repairs to the forward weapons array." 

"And we might need them," Dylan broke in, his voice tense. 

"Ship," Tyr bellowed again letting go of Harper. Silence. Tyr cursed as the ship seemed to lurch to one side. "Launch starboard fighters," he muttered to himself, instinctively knowing where the ship had been hit. Tyr turned back to Harper. Grabbing his shoulders again, Tyr leaned over him protectively. "Launch the damn fighters," he yelled into the air as sparks exploded around them. "Come on boy," he encouraged. "Prove to us that you are the genius you keep telling us you are." 

Tyr kept hold of Harper as the Andromeda lurched from side to side shielding him, with his larger body, from the exploding sparks that rained down on them. Just as Tyr was beginning to grow impatient, and was tempted to shake Harper, the small body twitched and Harper opened his eyes. He grinned up at Tyr. "All done," he wriggled out of Tyr's hold. "One. Two. Three," he counted with his fingers. Tyr felt the deep rumble as the Andromeda fired her forward weapons array. Even though they were deep within the belly of the Andromeda, both men heard the explosion off the starboard side. The ship rocked slightly in the after shocks. 

"Target destroyed," the cool voice of the Andromeda announced. 

"Yay. Way to go," Harper punched the air. 

"Mr. Harper," Dylan's voice came over the com. "Good work. You too Tyr," he said. "Damage control report in half an hour. Dylan out." 

"Yes sir," Harper mock saluted. He glanced around at the sparking panels with a frown. "Oh crap," he swore as he surveyed the damage. "No peace for the wicked," Harper grinned back at Tyr. "Come on," he waved his hand at the Nietzschean. "I'll teach you what screwdriver does what," he teased. "And I'll soon make an engineer outta you." 

"Boy," Tyr growled as he folded his arms. "Do not stand near any airlocks," he threatened, but gave Harper a small smile to take the sting out of the threat. 

Harper decided to ignore the threat, turning towards one of the sparking panels. "Oh," he looked over his shoulder. "By the way. Thanks," he jerked his head towards the panel he had been plugged in to. "For back there." He turned back to his task. 

"You're welcome," Tyr nodded his head in salute. He stared at Harper's back as it suddenly struck him that he had been wrong - Harper had trusted him, trusted him to watch over him while he was at his most vulnerable. He cocked his head to one side, a teasing smile playing on his lips. "I wouldn't have wanted to miss acting as your assistant again," he leaned towards the tool box. 

Harper looked up from his work at Tyr pulling a disbelieving face. "Yeah right," he replied as Tyr slapped a screwdriver in his hand. 

THE END

  
  



End file.
